Hat Tip: New Scientist Space via World News Daily
Paris-based satellite company Eutelsat is investigating "unidentified interference" with its satellite broadcast services that temporarily knocked out several television and radio stations. The company declined to say whether it thought the interference was accidental or deliberate.
The problem began Tuesday afternoon, blocking several European, Middle East and northeast African radio and television stations, as well as Agence France-Presse's news service. All transferred their satellite transmissions to another frequency to resume operations.
Theresa Hitchens of the Center for Defense Information think-tank in Washington DC, US, says there have been cases of deliberate satellite jamming in the past, but it is hard to see what motivation there would be in this instance. "It's really puzzling to me," she told New Scientist. "If it was accidental, why would they be so secretive about saying what the source was and if it's deliberate, you've got to wonder why it just seems to me to be an odd target, unless someone's ticked off at the French," she says.
Hitchens points out that there have been cases of deliberate jamming, including one in the 1990s when Indonesia and Tonga had a dispute over which country had the rights to a particular satellite orbital slot. Tonga had leased the slot to a satellite firm based in Hong Kong, but Indonesia had its own satellite in the same slot and proceeded to jam the Hong Kong satellite.
In a more recent incident, the US claimed in 2003 that Cuba was jamming its satellite broadcasts into Iran.
#2
Center for Defense Information is a lefty propaganda organ that masquerades as a think tank in order to provide pseudo-authoritative data in support of left-wing anti-military propaganda.
They would naturally be puzzled by any attempt to subvert the demonic French media.
#3
The problem began Tuesday afternoon, blocking several European, Middle East and northeast African radio and television stations, as well as Agence France-Presse's news service.
#4
Hmmm, let's see now. Who might gain from knocking out communications in Europe, the Middle East, and north Africa? What does this region have in common?
Is there a war going on somewhere in the Middle East? I think there might be...
Are there ships and aircraft being positioned over there that somebody might not want somebody in the region to see? I think there might just be...
Either that or the Hidden Imam has returned accompanied by some humongous EMP. Or maybe we just wanted to get everybody's attention focused on the comsats while something else was going on.
There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits
Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his wife have had their first child after nine years of marriage, a presidential spokesman said on Friday. Karzais wife Zinat, an obstetrician, gave birth to a baby boy, named Mirwais, at Rabaha-e-Balkhi hospital in Kabul at 11:30 pm (19:30 GMT) on Thursday, presidential spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi told AFP. Mirwais is in good health and is of normal weight. The president is very happy, said Rahimi.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2007 00:00 ||
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He has nothing else to do; Karzai never leaves his protected compound.
Republican Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and a favorite of conservatives, will take the first step in a 2008 presidential bid, an official told The Associated Press on Friday. Huckabee, 51, plans to file papers on Monday establishing an exploratory committee that will allow him to raise money and hire campaign staff.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
what possesses these pols, LOL, this guy has the charisma of a short gerbil. not saying hes a bad dude, certainly better than the donks, but jeeze!
#4
unfortunately charisma and other window dressing b.s. wins elections in the mondern day 24/7 msm. I'd imagine the original founders and great presidents of the past prolly couldn't make it into today's elections - too much nonessential crap.
#7
? Duncan Hunter is in, has little chance except as a reliable, loyal GOP VP or to push through real border security policies. Huckabee has....er...?
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2007 14:29 Comments ||
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I like Duncan Hunter allot, he's got some internal force going for him, you can feel his conviction.. his character when he speaks.
#9
RD, IIRC, you're local to San Diego (like me) - he's a national treasure, undiscovered by the east coast rabble
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/27/2007 16:40 Comments ||
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I got an email a couple of days ago to sign a petition to draft Tom Tancredo. He won't go far, either, but he will raise a stink about the southern border. The field's going to be quite crowded by mid-April. At least we'll have a choice. It won't be a GOOD choice, but it WILL be a choice.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
01/27/2007 18:54 Comments ||
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#11
FrankRD, IIRC, you're local to San Diego (like me) - he's a national treasure, undiscovered by the east coast rabble
Local in Spirit Frank, I'm based a few hundred miles North in San Mateo Co. Caliphornia [coast]. ;-)
the only politicians up this way are agents for America's enemies, socialists, Chi-Coms, Satan etc.
***
Broadhead6: unfortunately charisma and other window dressing b.s. wins elections in the mondern day 24/7 msm. I'd imagine the original founders and great presidents of the past prolly couldn't make it into today's elections - too much nonessential crap.
excellent point, if only we were fortunate enough to get a visit from our Framers again today. I bet they'd call us all to Arms again! Revolution Men! 1776 in-->2007... I'm so there already!!
*** Old Patriot: Tom Tancredo is someone I really admire, he's told it like it is for years, Stands Up and says what he believs in which is good healthy traditional American Values. no BS.
We are so cursed in the GOP party by the PC pandering finger variety, waving digits in the air waiting on he latest polls.
We have great people in America it just that we can't get enough of them to run and then get them elected. Wer must beat Hildabeast!
Around 19 percent of the Pakistanis who participated in an International Republican Institute (IRI) survey want Benazir Bhutto to be the head of the state, while only two percent of the participants favoured Musharraf for the same role, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Information Secretary Farzana Raja told reporters on Friday.
Ms Raja said that IRI released details of the survey a month ago. She said that 46 percent of the people surveyed also thought the PPP was the most popular party of the country. She said that 54 percent of the people wanted the army to play no role in politics. Some 70 percent people were of the view that exiled leaders should be allowed to return to Pakistan.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/27/2007 00:00 ||
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I suspect the other 89% of Pakistanis want OBL and Mulla Omar to run the country.
Fresh allegations of corruption within the United Nations have surfaced in a confidential audit report that claims the 2003 election of the current chief of the U.N. weather agency was manipulated. The report, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, centered around payments to government delegates at the Geneva-based
World Meteorological Organization, which coordinates the study of the world's weather and climate.
WMO hired Maria Veiga of Portugal, an independent auditor who wrote the report, in 2003 to investigate the financial irregularities, but fired her three years later for what it described as "serious misconduct." The auditor, however, said she was blocked from pursuing her investigation, received intimidating phone calls and was threatened with legal action by one WMO official before being dismissed.
In a 65-page summary of her findings, Veiga said that Muhammad Hassan of Sudan, a former WMO staffer, skimmed some $3 million from the agency while he was working in its training department. The disappearance of the money was made public in 2003 when WMO handed the matter over to Swiss authorities. At the time Hassan, who by then had gone abroad, was suspected of having embezzled the money.
But according to the documents seen by the AP, most of funds were allegedly used to influence the votes of about 50 WMO member states during the May 2003 election of the agency's new secretary-general. The misappropriated funds were "used to pay travel, accommodation and pocket money of ... delegates of certain countries with WMO (on the understanding) that the delegates would then vote and act according to Mr. Hassan's and other WMO staff members' ... instructions," the report states.
Hassan's current whereabouts are unknown to Swiss authorities, and the AP was unable to contact him. But Marc Tappolet, the investigating magistrate of Geneva canton, told the AP that the Swiss inquiry against Hassan is continuing.
The purpose of the payments was to support the candidacy of Kenya's Evans Mukolwe, the report said. Veiga told the AP that delegates told her the idea was to draw votes away from France's official candidate, Jean Pierre Beysson, so that senior WMO official Michel Jarraud, also of France, could win the top post.
Mukolwe beat Beysson 85-70 in the first round of voting, but failed to win the required two-thirds majority in three subsequent rounds, and nominations were reopened. Lithuania then nominated Jarraud, who beat Mukolwe by 109 to 50 votes.
Jarraud had served for eight years as deputy to outgoing WMO chief Godwin Obasi of Nigeria. "I think Mr. Obasi ... wanted his deputy to be elected because he felt that Mr. Jarraud's election would bring a certain continuity of his work," Beysson told the AP late on Friday by telephone from Paris.
Posted by: ed ||
01/27/2007 16:31 ||
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We have an isober moving in from the northeast which will merge with a weak cold-front coming in from the west that will preclude any investigations into these allegations as it will freeze the current modus operndi of the meterorological debate at the precise moment the strong high-pressure system coming from the US is trying to overide the freezing of the allegations.
"Corruption alleged at the United Nations. And in other news, weather forecasters are predicting a warming trend through the first part of summer, and last night's game had a winner and a loser."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Republican Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and a favorite of conservatives, will take the first step in a 2008 presidential bid, an official told The Associated Press on Friday. Huckabee, 51, plans to file papers on Monday establishing an exploratory committee that will allow him to raise money and hire campaign staff.
Around 19 percent of the Pakistanis who participated in an International Republican Institute (IRI) survey want Benazir Bhutto to be the head of the state, while only two percent of the participants favoured Musharraf for the same role, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Information Secretary Farzana Raja told reporters on Friday. 
